Honesty and Other Little Things

I came home, truly (?) home, at midnight. Entry was no problem, an Uber dropped me off at the door, and I was determined to go to work the next day. I woke up early, made myself a coffee, and suddenly felt that strange pull in my stomach. Moments later it was clear: work was not going to happen. Stomach flu. Bad. Sitting on the toilet with a bucket in your lap, that’s an experience no one really wants. For two days I was down. In the dark. On top of the stomach flu came jet lag, humidity, heat, and that quiet melancholy that creeps in when you’ve become a stranger to yourself. I wasn’t home. I was back in Australia. And it felt like someone had pulled the floor out from under me.

I started to wonder how it had come to this. Why I was lying there, air conditioner humming, ordering Coke and pretzels through Uber Eats, alone in a country that was supposed to be my home. I gave myself until Monday to get it together again. No idea how I managed. It’s still not really over. But I function. Somehow. I work twelve hours a day, too tired to think, too tired to feel, too tired to run. Just tired. And maybe that’s a good thing. And as if that weren’t complicated enough, of course I met someone. At a conference. Of course she lives in Europe. Of course she’s graceful, beautiful, brilliant, honest, enchanting. Of course it’s complicated. And of course I’m addicted, to the attention, the affection, the contact. Of course the distance kills me, the time difference, the constant battle between reason and longing. The rational Ralph says this has no future. The other one, the one hungry for life, says: let it happen. Don’t overthink. Just enjoy it. Of course. Easy. Fuck you, man. Both of you. I hate you so much. Can’t you just, for once, be simple? Uncomplicated? I finally manage to open my mouth, to talk to a woman, to overcome that stupid shyness, and of course she turns out to be a dream woman. And of course she’s impossibly far away. Perfect. I must be looking for this kind of mess. Simple is for amateurs.

So here I sit again, angry with myself. Restless, dissatisfied. I start looking for reasons, read my own blog, stumble across things I hadn’t noticed before. Good thing I wrote them down. I try to understand myself, my motives, and realize, it’s not the lines that are written that hit me, it’s the ones that aren’t. The things I consciously keep to myself, the ones I don’t say, don’t write, don’t share. Which means I’m not honest. Not with myself, not with anyone. I don’t owe honesty to anyone, but the consequence is obvious: I won’t be happy anywhere. I don’t seek happiness. I seek problems. The more complex, the more hopeless, the better. The more painful, the more familiar. I carry these conflicts like trophies. I’m not just lonely. I’m alone. And that’s okay.

Sometimes I look at old photos, see where I was, how I kept moving, from job to job, city to city, problem to problem, and never really arrived anywhere. I see that even today I’m still paying off a loan, just so I could once move from Wiesbaden to Essen. I had just started that job, still in the probation period, nothing but a verbal promise of a position, and I left anyway. Why? Because I wanted it more complicated. In Essen I first lived in a nurses’ dorm with three women from Vietnam and one oddly distant German woman. Along the way I rented three other apartments, at least for a few days each, and eventually ended up in a five-room place without a kitchen. Everything cost money, nerves, and patience. At work, nothing functioned at first: no installations, no equipment, no staff. Six months later everything was running — analytics, HPLCs, MALDI — and the reward? I got yelled at. At first occasionally, then regularly, finally every day. I was always the one to blame. The selfish one. The one who only thought of himself. Was she right? Probably. But at some point, enough was enough. Another lab built from scratch, everything on my shoulders again, and once more I ended up the idiot. And then there was the woman, the reason I did all of this. The one I quit my job for, took out a loan for, spent three months living in that dorm for. And her? Manipulative, toxic, overwhelmed. And me? I loved every second of it. Why? Because that’s what I’m used to. Complicated, hopeless, intense. I can’t do it any other way. Conflicts can’t be solved, only shifted, buried, carried forward. They never stop. You just keep going. A conflict is like an addiction. Only when you quit the substance do you become free. Does that make sense? If you’re honest, yes. But I’m not always honest. It hurts too much.

Only sometimes, for a few brief seconds, can I admit that I lose too. And then I leave. I leave often. I tell myself it’s not a defeat, but every time I’m honest, I know it is. And so I throw myself into the next complicated, hopeless, complex adventure. That’s how it will go on, until I’m gone. No happy end in this life. And in that sense, there’s still a lot more honesty in me.

P.S. I could have paid off that loan ages ago. No problem. But I keep it going, month after month, as a reminder. A warning never to get dependent again. No person. No attachment. No risk. This weekend I thought about it again, sitting on the beach at Straddie, watching the waves and thinking about the last few years. I heard the music, and thought: Ah, fuck you. I'm going ahead, and you? Keep lying to yourself.